Product details

Iron in the Blood is an album exploring the rich
tapestry of Australia's colonial past. Featuring music by
award-winning saxophonist/composer Jeremy Rose and his newly
formed Earshift Orchestra, the album is inspired by and features
text from Robert Hughes' seminal work The Fatal Shore,
read by Philip Quast (three-time Laurence Olivier Award winner)
and William Zappa (Mad Max 2; Dead Europe).

PM Malcolm Turnbull aptly summarized the book in a parliamentary
tribute to Hughes (1938-2012): "Hughes' account of Australia's
convict system, The Fatal Shore, is probably the
best-read Australian history. It exposed in Bob's compelling
prose the sadistic brutality bound up in our nation's founding -
a system that not only dispossessed and all but destroyed the
native people but then flogged and tortured the prisoners it had
brought to the other end of the world". Iron in the
Blood provides an opportunity to explore Hughes' masterpiece
with a musical narrative that creates a rich fabric of
perspective, from evocations of Australian natural beauty to the
folksong of the colonialists. Hughes was reportedly a jazz-lover,
making this work a fine tribute to not only the book, but to
Hughes himself. Composed and conducted by Rose, the work is
brought to life by a stellar 17-piece orchestra, featuring a new
generation of Australian musical talent.